


Little Lights

by kaynibbler16



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Episode: s02e04 The Girl in the Fireplace, Post-Episode: s02e05-06 Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 21:16:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13843200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaynibbler16/pseuds/kaynibbler16
Summary: After the last couple of weeks Rose is tired of pretending that she's okay.





	Little Lights

Rose stared up at the billions of stars above her, her mind just as far way as those tiny lights. In the last two weeks her heart had been broken, battered, and bruised. Everything she’d believed about her relationship with the Doctor had been turned upside down. Meeting Sarah Jane had changed what she thought was inevitable between them. Rose thought that if she was patient enough he would eventually realize that he loved her and they could both come to terms with their feelings for each other.

What she hadn’t anticipated was that he had already acknowledged his feelings her, but just chose not to act on them. After Sarah Jane, Rose knew that the Doctor loved her.

Until they landed on that damned spaceship. 

Was that what Sarah Jane had meant? _  
_

_Some things are worth getting your heart broken for._

They saved the day again today. It was a human settlement on a planet twenty thousand light-years away from Earth. A scared Aloopian had become stranded on the planet and was wreaking havoc. After the Doctor and Rose managed to calm the Aloopian down, they helped it repair its ship and send it on its way home.

Really, it should have been just another day in the lives of the Doctor and Rose, but like most of their adventures recently it wasn’t. No, there was a woman named Anyaana who had helped them out and the Doctor had taken a shine to her. He spent the rest of the evening in her company while Rose could only watch from the sidelines. 

Was this what life was going to be like from now on? The Doctor takes her somewhere new only to find someone more brilliant and talented than Rose. Was she just a placeholder until another Sarah Jane or Reinette showed up to dazzle the Doctor?

Maybe she was just being petty. It’s not their fault that they had found the Doctor captivating. Rose had been equally entranced by him.

Maybe this was her punishment for believing that the Doctor only loved her. What if his people were more lax about their romantic relationships and had several partners at once?

Could Rose stand by and watch the Doctor fall in love with another? Was it worth it?

Would he just leave her behind one day?

_No, not to you,_ he’d said _.  
_

But then Reinette happened and he had left Rose behind; over and over again.

Then they fell into the other universe and Rose almost left him behind, but he’d followed her. He’d pleaded with her not to be taken in by the possibilities that world presented to her.

Maybe he was over what had gotten into him on that spaceship?

But then they had landed on this planet and he’d met Anyanna and now she wasn’t sure of that anymore.

She wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

Rose reclined on the violet sand that surrounded her and listened to the waves lap against the shore. She’d wandered out here to get away from the revelers inside the encampment. To get away from watching the Doctor break her heart once again.

“Bored already?”

She should have known better than to think she could escape from further heartbreak. “Just tired. The noise was getting to me.”

The Doctor plopped down next to her on the sand. “Really? Well, it is a bit late. Maybe time for Rose Tyler to turn in for the night.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

The Doctor frowned. “Are you feeling alright?”

“I’m always alright.”

Rose felt the Doctor tense next to her. She’d hit a nerve.

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence before the Doctor stood up. “Well, then I’ll leave you to it. The TARDIS is still parked where we landed her in case you want to turn in early.”

“Okay.” She wouldn’t look up at him.

She was just so tired.

The Doctor didn’t walk away. “Rose, if there’s anything…I mean, if something’s…bothering you, you’d tell me, right?”

Rose stared up at those distant stars. So much life teemed around several of those little pinpricks. So many beings just going about their lives. Living and loving and dying.

_Some things are worth getting your heart broken for._

“Yeah.” 

And someday she would tell him, but not today. Someday, though.


End file.
